Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge facts for kids

Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge is a special kind of soda. It's a zero-calorie (meaning no calories!) soft drink that tastes like chocolate fudge. It gets its sweet taste from a sugar substitute called aspartame. This soda is made and sold by the A.J. Canfield Company from Elgin, Illinois, in the USA. For people in the Midwest, it's bottled by the American Bottling Company, which is part of Keurig Dr Pepper.

The Story of Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge

How It All Started

This unique drink first came out in 1972. It was created by Alan B. Canfield, who was 32 years old at the time. He was a senior vice president at A.J. Canfield Beverages, a company his grandfather had started.

Alan Canfield loved chocolate and was often on a diet. In 1971, he had a great idea. He brought a two-pound box of fudge to Manny Wesber, the company's main chemist. He wanted to know if they could make a diet soda that tasted like it.

Manny Wesber worked hard and created a drink that was sweetened with saccharin. It had an artificial chocolate fudge flavor. The drink sold fairly well alongside Canfield's other sodas for about 13 years.

When It Became Super Popular

In 1984, Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge soda got a big update. Instead of saccharin, it was now sweetened with aspartame. This change made a huge difference!

A reporter named Bob Greene from the Chicago Tribune newspaper tried the soda. He wrote that it tasted "like a calorie-free hot fudge sundae." After his review, sales of the soda exploded! It went from being a regular seller to a huge hit almost overnight.

By 1985, many bottling companies across the United States wanted to sell Canfield's Diet Chocolate Fudge. They got special agreements to be the only sellers in their areas. Because of this, over 200 million cans of the soda were sold in just one year!

As other companies started making their own chocolate diet sodas, Canfield's became very protective of its "Chocolate Fudge" name. They even sued a company called Vess Beverages for using the name "Vess Diet Chocolate Fudge." A judge first ruled in favor of Canfield's, saying Vess couldn't use the word "fudge" on their cans. Even though this decision was later changed, the case is still studied today as an example of rules about brand names.

Some new flavors were also tried, but they weren't as popular. In 1987, "Diet Cherry Chocolate Fudge" and "Diet Peanut Chocolate Fudge" were introduced. You can still find these flavors today, but they are not as common.

Changes for the Company

In 1995, the A.J. Canfield Company was sold to another company called Select Beverages. The exact price of the sale was not shared. The Canfield's factory in Elgin, which had been making drinks since the 1930s, closed the next year. Production of the Diet Chocolate Fudge drinks then moved to a different factory.

See also

• Diet food
• List of chocolate drinks